December 13th, 2010

After having gone to too many disappointing concerts, my faith in the power of live music has been restored!

I think I came across Andreya Triana through Bonobo’s new album Black Sands where she features on some of the songs.

I got an email today about this concert tonight and had a good feeling. It helped that she was playing at the Tabernacle, a beautiful community arts center in the heart of Notting Hill with a fascinating history (it was the epicenter of West Indian immigration in the 60’s).

The guitarist walked on stage and started playing a simple repeating series of notes, eyes closed. She emerged shortly after in a pink jumpsuit and purple high heels, and went straight into the song, Darker Than Blue, eyes closed. It was the perfect way to begin. In fact the highlights of the show for me was when the music was stripped down to only her voice and the minimum of instrumentation.

Andreya’s voice is rich and smooth, filled with soulful inflections. She has the ability to switch into a higher register which totally gets me. She was fully immersed in the music when she sang tonight, giving herself to it fully and unselfconsciously. You could see how much she loves what she is doing.

The band on stage were also fantastic. I was surprised that the only programmed element was when she played with echoing and looping her vocals. There was a string section (2 violins and 1 cello), a horn section (sax, trombone), plus a guitarist, bassist, drummer and keyboard player.

Simon Green (aka Bonobo) came on stage and played the keyboard for one of the last tracks, which is from his album.

There were many elements that contributed to making it a wonderful concert (venue, band etc.) but mostly Andreya’s beautiful voice and her total humility and obvious dedication to the music. Take away everything, leaving just her and a guitar or keyboard and it still would have been heaven.